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Chapter 1
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I think the society conditions girls to think, feel and perceive a certain way that makes them believe they're special princesses that gives them privilege over stuff. Or maybe some girls are just plain stupid.
Growing up, there's one too many movies and novels about the prince that rescues the damsel in distress. Isn't it high time the society stopped telling these stories to children?
Chapter 2
Today morning, I took Jackson for a walk. The sun was out after a long time and I wanted to bask it in before it was time to return to my chores. As I closed my eyes, soaking in the heat, I was transferred to a much younger self when I was maybe 9 or 10. I remember feeling the sun on my skin like this…just as I was about to go inside my school. I remember feeling terrorized not doing the math homework on fractions. I remember the “fuck that bitch” feeling thinking about my math teacher, then walking in like the boss I was. Hahaha. Back to current self, I picked up after Jackson and returned home from the short walk...
Chapter 3
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There’s a room in my house that I haven’t been in for more than 10 years
Nobody likes the room and we wouldn’t go alone into it
Sometimes I hear dull sounds of footsteps on the floor from it
Some other times I’d see a shadow moving along the walls
This room is on the first floor, opposite to the parking garage where my dad parks his car
At night, the parking garage lights attached to the wall shared with that room wouldn’t turn on
First it was just the parking room lights
Then it spread it the other walls shared with that room
Even string lights drawing power from the room wouldn’t work
Slowly, it seeped to the second floor where we lived
I’d wake up night and see a shadow standing by the dining room
Halfway through my bedroom and my parents’, there’s always a shadow at night, watching me sleep
I started feeling a presence through daylight too
When I’d feel like there was someone moving from the corner of my eye
My dog would look in the same direction and bark hysterically like there was an intruder
Sometimes, when I sit by the stairs, I’d feel aggressive taps on my head from behind
Late nights, I’d hear activity from the home.
Like someone was chewing food, gulping water, walking barefooted across the tiled floor
Then one night when it was raining I remember feeling particularly odd
Late at night I woke up to the sounds of thunderstorms outside my window
It sounded like big trucks were falling from the sky
When I woke up, I heard noises coming from my closet
Like someone was crunching on a plastic bag
So I pulled the sheet over my head and tossed to the other side
No sooner did I pull the sheet over me, than a hand fell on my face
It grabbed my face so hard that I screamed my lungs out
In one swift motion,I ran across the room and into my parent’s room
I couldn’t be hushed for 4 hours straight
Eventually, we’d build another floor above ours and move into it. Away from the darkness
But it would follow us up even to the third floor
And then to the fourth
Finally to the fifth
Until the whole house just became dead from its roots
Just like the relationship between the people that lived in it
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Chapter 4
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In 2003, my mom and I had a routine. We would wake up at 5am every Saturday and walk about 5 miles up-hill to a farmers market in our county to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. On our way back, we’d hire an auto-rickshaw to bring the load back home. The best part about our Saturday ritual was that my mom would buy me a bottle of Badam milk once we reached the market. So basically, I can walk 5miles at 5am on a weekend if you offer me food or drinks.
Chapter 5
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Do you ever get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place... like you're not only going to miss the people you love there but you'll also miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again?
Chapter 6
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To realize just how small we are, is the price we pay to see the stars.
Each memory is a blinding echo, of the ones that came before.
But echoes bounce off the things they touch,
touching and seeping into objects too much.
Chapter 7
A few min after our wedding, Surya and I looked at each other and wondered if this was the right thing to do and if maybe this wasn't the right thing to do. We're not lovers we're just friends who love each others' company and therein lies the difference.
A couple years later, we still feel the same. "Forever" means different things to different people and that's okay?
Chapter 8
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Make me the wind,
The wind that moves a desert
Make me the tree,
The tree that withstands storms
Make me the sky,
The sky that whispers to mountains
And make me the dragon,
The dragon that breathes fire
Chapter 9
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Last night, I had the weirdest dream ever. Considering how my dreams are almost always weird, this specific series of dreams should definitely be superlative to the rest.
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The first dream
I was in a house. Alone. And I was constantly running and hiding. There's a serial killer in the house and he looks very very masochistic too. He had multiple nails drilled into his bald head and was loving the blood dripping on his face from time to time. I'm trying to run away but the house is locked and there's no way out. Weird.
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The second dream
I was out with my grandma and my mom and we were doing a tour of the neighborhood my grandma was raised in. We then stopped at a house - very blue and very old. Just as fragile as my grandma herself. Something about the house was drawing me to it so we decided to take a walk inside. I then start to have flashes of what furniture went where and eventually my grandma says - "this is the house I was born in but we sold it to someone when I got married. my mom loved this house very very much". And then I realize I was her mom in my previous birth. Weird much.
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The third dream
My mom is nowhere to be seen. Nothing strange has happened yet. But my heart is racing to get out of the house. I'm in our house. The one I was raised in, the one my parents still live in.
My brother, my father and his father were walking around in a gliding motion. But that wasn't it. There were multiple versions of them walking around like zombies. Each version was a possibly scenario in which they could've died. There were 5 of my grandfathers each hurt and dead in a different way. I was running around the house trying to find the exit but I couldn't and that's when I saw my versions. All standing right in front of me. I definitely saw some 3-4 versions of myself but even in the dream, it was so much to take that I immediately tried to unsee it and wake up.
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I have been known to have the worst kind of nightmares especially when I'm sick but man this just keeps getting interesting as I grow older.
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Chapter 10
There's a cafe near my house
that doubles as a library
it's a temple without a dome
with books both friendly and scary
Chapter 11
I think it was just yesterday. I was telling my colleagues that I'm going to Mexico for a vacation. I had made all the reservations at least 5 months prior so the excitement wasn't there anymore. I was only packing the bare minimum. I printed out all the necessary documents - like the theme park entry tickets, car rental confirmation, etc.
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It's been 3 months since I went and a lot has happened since then. I visited India. My ammamma. Took my family to Thailand. Had a close brush with covid-19. Brought some dates from Dubai. Oh, I went to Dubai too.
My beloved ammamma had decided it was time for her to leave us. Covid-19 is now a pandemic with 100,000 cases in the US alone.
We're all working remote and everyone I know is in lockdown.
Where are the avengers and do they agree that Thanos was right?
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Chapter 12
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When I was a child…maybe at about 5 or 6 years old, my evening routine included play time at Vijju’s house. Vijju was my age and lived opposite to our house.
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My father wasn’t very allowing to go to my grandparents’ house often so I had started seeking comfort in elderly presence at Vijju’s house.
Vijju’s ammamma is an amazing woman. She made us play a lot of games.
She taught us short poems and more native Telugu stories that we could recite for guests. One very famous story was describing the family members as vegetables based on their appearances I think.
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She also used to bring some very interesting snacks from her hometown of Vuyyuru. Most of them were sweets and I always went back asking for more. She had a long naamam bottu on her forehead and is an ardent follower of Srimannarayana and Lord Vishnu.
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She was in my dream last night.
It’s been many many many years since I last saw her. Every time I meet Malathi aunty, I ask about ammamma.
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Today I have a special craving to eat on of her instant snacks - the one that you add milk and sugar to and it becomes a jelly like halwa?
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I don’t have a way of reaching her but I hope she’s doing well.
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Chapter 13
If you don't introspect on what you value in life, it makes it really hard to come to decisions or even articulate them to a group.
The problem lies in not knowing what you value in your life and therefore what you prioritize. When you're given a choice, it becomes easy to choose because you are not allowing yourself to ponder about events as they happen. I often find myself wondering if I reacted out of my own mind or if I am mirroring what my mother or the society would want me to do?
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Do you value liberty and creativity or conformity and adherence? Would you choose to preserve or upcycle? Do you believe in conversing to convey a perspective or would you disengage from a bully?
Chapter 14
I have a trouble recognizing my face in photos. I don't know who the girl in my photos is.
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Is that normal? I can see my face changing - I used to be chubby with visible jawlines and high cheekbones
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Of late, I feel like I'm starting to show dimples and I love seeing how we're all growing all the time.
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This is me. Me when I was x years old.
Chapter 16
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So I turned thirty. Something I have been dreading all my life.
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It's not the aging that bothers me but it's the expectations people now have out of me that drives me insane.
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Now I will be expected to have a house, a higher title, and the most closest future - when will I bear children. No, these are not questions I have for myself. These are questions everyone else has for me and is frankly the most dreadful thing to face on turning 30.
Chapter 17
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How am I 32 already, hmmm?
Chapter 18
You are not allowed to feel nostalgic. Your friends around you will call you a hypocrite.
"I was born, raised, baptized, and married right here in this city. I don't quite understand how some people leave their whole lives behind to work in a foreign country"
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You are not allowed to feel nostalgic. Your friends back home will call you a hypocrite.
"Ok, why don't you quit your job and come back to India? India is in an accelerated progression, and I'm sure companies here could use your skills"
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You are not allowed to feel nostalgic. Your employer will tell you to use your 2 weeks of vacation time-off to visit family.
"But it takes 3 days to reach home and another 3 to travel back here. Is 9 days of family time the only vacation I get in a year?"
Chapter 18
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I turned 33 last month and feel much older than that. Maybe because I've been through a lot as a 32yr old. It wasn't like profound bad luck or anything but it wasn't fun for sure. It was a bad combination of little to medium sized worries and throw in a couple big worries and you get the disaster recipe. I know friends and social acquaintances who've been through worse and yet haven't lost their sanity the way I did. I guess density applies not only to matter but also to mental strength. I slid into a clinical depression and I'm definitely feeling the shame in talking about it. The taboo with it is certainly real. I have always advocated for a balanced work-life ratio and yet I don't have that myself.
I had the first summer of this year in early 2023 in India.
I worry about life during work and I worry about work during rest. I worry a lot. Week feel like months. Years feel like days. The nostalgia of not being where you want to be and not being with who you choose is overwhelming to say the least.
But like all things good and bad, this too shall pass :) I am my own Gandalf but its also ok to seek help. I didn't wait too long to mope around in melancholy and instead, I got help. I have therapy, medication, its summer, and most of all my mom's coming to visit me so I already feel so much better. Here's to my second summer of 2023.